Revision as of 23:59, 17 November 2013

Contents

Channel Icon Download System

As of 0.21, MythTV includes a channel icon download system in mythtv-setup which will attempt to automatically download icons for channels in your database from services.mythtv.org. If it cannot find an icon it will present you with a list of options, an the ability to define your own search parameters.

To configure icon downloading in mythtv-setup:

run "mythtv-setup"

select "Channel Editor"

click on "Icon Download"

select either "Download all icons.." or "Rescan for missing icons.."

Universal Location

Starting with version 0.27, a single location for channel icons is used.
By default, it will be in the .mythtv/channels directory of the user
that runs mythbackend. Typically, mythtv. The location is defined
in the built-in ChannelIcons Storage Group (it's not necessary to create
or change the ChannelIcons Storage Group.)

Run mythtv-setup and get a new set of channel icons. They'll be stored
in the directory above.

The Services API (e.g. <backend>:6544/Guide/GetChannelIcon?ChanId=1021) endpoint works with this
feature as of [85462fb]cgitgithub.

Symlinks added for prior MythTV versions, duplicate channels directories and
any ChannelIcons directories and their contents can be removed.

Pre 0.27 Instructions

By default the icon will be downloaded to the /home/<user>/.mythtv/channels directory. This is not very friendly when you have multiple frontends and wish them all to share the icons. One method to get around this is to use a symlink for this directory that directs to a network located directory that all your frontends have access to, say /var/mythtv/channels for example.

Before downloading the icons, do the following, or similar as per your distribution:

Channel Icon Sources

One of the best sources of channel icons is http://www.lyngsat-logo.com/ . There, you can browse the available icons and choose those appropriate for your system. However, doing so can be a lot of work (requiring many page hits and a lot of time). Once downloaded you should put the resulting JPEG files into .mythtv/channels/ for the user running the front-end. To add them to a channel you will need to run mythtv-setup and go to the channel editor and specify the icon file name for each channel.

Another source of channel icons is http://www.iconharmony.com/ which is targeted for icons for the harmony remote. Some of the available icons are more stylized than the official icon (the person running the site is a graphic artist). As with the previous source, finding an appropriate icon can be a lot of work.